


Five Times Peter and Jared Said ‘I Love You’ (And One Time They Didn’t)

by Zhyrs



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Gen, M/M, Post-Finale, Sweetness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhyrs/pseuds/Zhyrs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. High School

Jared's, arguably, had not a great day. He's pretty sure he failed a math test, his father wouldn't let him borrow the jag, and the black eye that he got for mouthing off to one of the band kids is threatening to swell shut. But none of that is going to deter him from going to watch one of Peter's football practices. 

Peter's practice is more than half over by the time Jared gets there (sometimes Jared hates that Peter lives in the valley). He leans against the chain link fence surrounding the field, searching for Peter in a sea of jocks, until he finally spots him doing throwing drills, then he moves to the bleachers closest to where Peter is. The coach is giving him the side eye, but they'd come to an understanding last year. Jared would neither bother Peter during practice or report on their plays to his football team, like that idea had ever even crossed Jared's mind, so he tries not to draw attention to himself. He just sinks down onto a bleacher (wishing his eye didn't hurt as much as it did) and watches Peter gracefully toss the ball halfway down the field. 

Danny notices him before Peter does. He gets up from where he'd gotten tackled and jogs over to Peter. "Your little rich friend's here." 

Peter's head whips around, scanning the bleachers. He smiles when he sees Jared and waves the football at him. Jared raises his hand and gives Peter a thumbs up. "Looking good, John Elway!" He can feel the coaches eyes on him again so he quickly makes a 'carry on' motion with his hands. Last thing he needs is for Peter to have to run extra laps or something because of him.

Peter goes back to practice and Jared goes back to quietly watching. He's amazed at how good Peter is. How good he's gotten since jr high. Probably good enough to nab a college scholarship if things keep going Peter's way. Neither of them have close to a 4.0, but Leonard at least could buy Jared into college (not that Jared has plans to go anywhere fancy, any plans to go anywhere really, he's waiting to see where Peter wants to go), and football could be Peter's big chance. He wants to be as supportive as possible.

Eventually it's over and Peter makes his way through a throng of shoulder slugging, butt patting players to get to Jared. Jared starts to say something but Peter's finally close enough to really get a look at him and he's suddenly very close to Jared, reaching out for his face. "The hell happened to you?" 

Jared shrugs, going for nonchalance. "Not as bad as it looks."

"Oh, well that's good." Peter mocks, his fingers gently probing the edges of the growing bruise. "Because it looks really terrible." He tilts Jared's head one way and then another. "Does it hurt?" He presses against the unbruised side of Jared's nose. 

Jared's trying really hard not to just melt into Peter's touch, the tension of the day washing away with Peter's concern. He tries to play it cool though. "It's fine..." 

Peter frowns. "Hang on a second." He pulls away from Jared. "Just... stay okay?" He's back half a minute later with a towel wrapped around some ice from the water cooler. 

Jared jerks back when Peter lays the freezing towel against his eye. "It's cold."

Peter puts a hand against the back of Jared's head to hold him still and presses the towel against him again. "That's kinda the idea, dude." His fingers are moving lightly in Jared's hair, though Jared's sure Peter doesn't even realize he's doing it. "Want me to go beat up who ever did this to you?", he asks lightly.

"That'd be great. A rival football player beats up a band member. I'd really rack up the popularity points with that." The cold's starting to numb the throbbing.

Peter adjusts the towel, squeezes his neck lightly, and says seriously "I'd do it, you know."

It's so earnest, like a confession, and Jared really means to say 'I know you would, Peter. It's okay though. You don't have to'. He really means to. But what he does instead is sigh out "I love you". 

And then he freezes because that's not what you say at all. Not to your best guy friend. Especially not to your best guy friend whose a football player. Especially especially not to your best guy friend whose a football player while there are other football players around. He's ready for disaster but Peter's got a funny look on his face, not angry or upset, just a little confused maybe, like he's not quite sure if Jared's joking or not, and the concern is still there, and something else that Jared can't place, but it's soft, like fondness. Then Peter smiles gently at him. "I love you too."


	2. College

They’re alone in their tiny dorm room. Jared’s laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, his head next to Peter’s, who’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. They’re contemplating how disastrous their midterms were with alcohol. Jared thinks it probably should have been a little less alcohol because they had a good buzz going, where everything seemed kind of awesome and they giggled a lot, but a couple of beers later and Peter had started waxing on about life after college and if his grades were ever going to be good enough for law school and that happy float-y feeling Jared had slowly turned into a sickening spin of thoughts about the future and how they were heading in different directions and… “I don’t wanna be a doctor.”

Peter stopped talking mid sentence and rolled his head to the side to look at Jared. “What?”

Jared kept staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to be a doctor.” It was a realization, a dawning, a shot of clarity about what pre med actually lead to. “I don’t want to go to medical school.” He turned his head towards Peter. Their noses almost touched. “I’d have to wear a lab coat every day, dude.” That seemed like a perfectly good reason to not want to be a doctor.

"So want do you want to do?"

Peter was looking at him and Jared had no idea. He’d gone for the pre med track in part to show up Leonard and because he thought it’d be neat to see cadavers, which it totally was, but not really enough to base a whole life off of. He doesn’t know, but Peter’s looking at him, waiting. “A lawyer?”

Peter snorts and takes a swig of beer. “You don’t want to be a lawyer.” He taps the beer can on his chest. “I want to be a lawyer. You hate the idea of being a lawyer.”

"I could be a lawyer." He says defensively. He totally could. He could be a lawyer with Peter. They could be lawyers. They could be better lawyers than Leonard. "I could be a better lawyer than Leonard." Peter’s giving him a look but Jared’s sort of sure about this. More sure than he is about medical school anyway. "I don’t want to be a doctor, Peter."

Peter’s look changes and he really turns towards Jared, leaning onto the bed so that they’re more eye to eye. “You’re serious? You’re going to be a lawyer?”

Jared rolls so that he’s on his belly and Peter doesn’t look upside down anymore. He waves a hand between them. “We’re going to be lawyers.”

A grin starts to spread across Peter’s face. “We’re going to be lawyers.”

Jared can’t help grinning in response. Peter looks so excited. He never wants to forget that look, this moment.

"Bash and Franklin."

Moment over. Jared huffs. “Please. Longer names always come first. Calvin and Hobbes, Sonny and Cher, Starsky and Hutch.” He ticks them off on his fingers.

"Dude, what? No. Bert and Ernie, Penn and Teller, Butch and Sundance."

"Shortened names don’t count. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Same amount of syllables."

Peter’s too drunk for that kind of logic. He shakes his head. “Okay. Greatest duo of all time?”

Jared gets a sparkle in his eyes. “Franklin and Bash.”

Peter loses it. He flops sideways onto the floor, laughing. “I love you.”

Jared leans over the side of the bed. “I love you too.”


	3. Law School

Janie and Peter are “taking a break”. The third break in six months. Jared’s tired of it. Jared’s also tired of the chorus of the 80’s power ballad that Peter’s been morosely strumming for the last hour and a half. And he’s pretty sure that this slightly out of tune version of Total Eclipse of the Heart being played outside her dorm window at 3 am was what caused Janie to suggest this current break in the first place.

Peter’s draped on the couch, head back, eyes close, the very picture of abject sadness. Even his hair looks sad. Jared hits Peter’s foot to get his attention just in time to stop another round of “and I need you now tonight”. Peter’s eyes crack open and he rolls his head towards Jared.

"She’s not worth it, dude." Jared says as he offers Peter a beer. It’s obviously the wrong thing to say because Peter’s eyes get a vaguely murderous glint in them. Jared set the beer down and back peddles. "What I mean is… she doesn’t realize what she’s giving up…?’ Peter’s eyes slide shut and his head drops back. The strumming starts again.

Jared can’t deal anymore. He grabs the guitar and holds it away from Peter’s grasping hands. “No. Enough of this, man.” He sets the guitar down (far enough away that Peter can’t make a grab for it), encourages Peter to sit up, and hands him the beer. “She doesn’t realize what she’s giving up,” he says earnestly this time. “Any one who breaks up with you is a fool.” That seems like it does the trick because Peter nods slowly.

"Yeah." He takes a long gulp of beer and looks Jared in the eyes, full of confidence that Janie’s made a terrible mistake.

"You don’t need people like that in your life." Jared says casually, turning his attention to his own beer. The line hadn’t worked any other time Peter and Janie had gone on a break, but Jared always throws it out there anyway, hoping one time Peter will catch it. "If she doesn’t know how appreciate you then who needs her."

Peter actually looks like he’s thinking about it this time. “Yeah… Janie who?” he says a bit sadly, eyes sliding towards his guitar.

"Hey." Jared leans into his line of sight and raises his beer in a toast. "I love you."

Peter (finally) smiles and clinks his beer to Jared’s. “I love you too.”


	4. Sunset Walk On The Beach

Everything had gone downhill so fast. One minute things were fine, the next Stanton was being lead out in handcuffs. As soon as Damien found out that Stanton had put Peter and Jared in charge instead of him he bailed, swanning off to another firm. Once Damien left it was like trying to keep rats on a sinking ship with the other senior partners, and with the loss of senior partners came the loss of high paying clients. Two months in and they had run through most of the firms monetary assets trying to mount a legal defense for the disbarred Stanton and making sure everyone still working at the firm was getting paid, while they tried to re tool a big, fancy law firm into something smaller and more streamlined and a little more… fiscally solvent. They stopped paying themselves. And then they stopped paying Carmen.

"We’re just… a little short this week." Jared hated this. Hated the way this felt. Hated having to do this with Carmen again, like they had sometimes had to back before Infeld Daniels. At least with Pindar they could still pull the ‘you burned down out house’ card.

Carmen sighed. “You’ve been a little short for the past month, guys.”

"Technically Jared’s been a little short his whole life, so…" Peter spread his hands out in front of him, but no one seemed to be in the mood. He tried "You know we’re good for it." instead.

"And you’ve been picking up some work with that other firm." Jared threw that out there. Carmen’s stellar investigating abilities had caught the eye of one of the bigger law firms in town and she’d taken on a couple of cases for them.

"Yeah, about that…" Carmen looked at the deck, the wind from the ocean blowing her hair across her face before she brushed it back. "They offered me a full time gig there."

"That’s great…?" Peter pushed. Carmen was still looking at the deck.

"Yeah, it’s great. Good firm. Good money. Except," She took a deep breath. "If I go to work for them…" She finally looked up at Peter and Jared.

Peter got it. He huffed out a breath. “If you work for them they don’t want you working with us.”

Carmen shook her head. “They don’t want me living with you either.” Jared opened his mouth but Carmen put up a hand to stop him. “I know, I know. Nothing would ever happen, you guys would never…” Peter turned away, running a hand through his hair. Jared shoved his hands into his pockets. “I should tell them that I ca-“

"You should take it."

Peter turned to Jared. “Dude.”

Jared ignored him, focusing entirely on Carmen. “You should take the job.”

"Really?" Carmen raised an eyebrow. "Cause your mouth says go but your eyes say ‘Please don’t leave us Carmen we can’t survive without you.’"

Peter leaned forward a little and waggled his finger in front of Jared. “Your eyes totally are saying that.”

Jared slapped his hand away and gave him a look. “We’re happy for you.”

Peter nodded. “It sounds like a really great opportunity.”

Carmen narrowed her eyes. “You’re sure?” She looked between them and then smiled sadly, gesturing towards inside. “I’m gonna go call them then.”

As she shut the deck door behind her Peter sunk down onto a chair. “I told you we should have docked Swatello’s pay instead. At least she’s got no where else to go.”

Less than a week later Carmen was gone.

Peter and Jared make their way down to the beach after watching Carmen’s car disappear into the distance. The sun's getting low, the darkness creeping in just around the edges, and the water has a stillness about it, like it knew not to disrupt the loss of a colleague and friend with loud crashing.

Peter kicks a shell out of the way. “Saddest movie goodbye of all time.”

Jared tucks his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and shrugs. “Harry and the Hendersons?”

Peter thinks about. “When John Lithgow hits him.” He nods. “Yeah. E.T.?”

"Made you cry."

Peter makes an affronted noise. “I was, like, nine. And not the only one in the theater crying.” He gives Jared a pointed look.

Jared pointedly ignores him and they lapse into silence, walking aimlessly along the water’s edge, sides touching, trying not to talk about the things they really should be talking about. Like how they’ll have to find a new investigator, which they can’t pay for. And get Stanton back to work, which they don’t know how to do. And bring in paying clients, which is always easier said than done.

There’s a rocky outcropping on the beach where they usually turn around and start to head back to the house, but Peter tugs Jared down to the sand to watch the sun finish setting. Jared leans his head against Peter’s shoulder and sighs. He feels tense, like something is wound too tight inside. As the sun drops below the horizon Peter tilts his head so that it’s resting on Jared’s. “I love you.” He says it casually, but it’s like a promise to Jared’s ears, that things will be okay, that they’ll work everything out.

The tension uncoils a bit in Jared’s chest and he leans heavier onto Peter. “I love you too.”


	5. Vegas

Everything was going so right. They’d saved Stanton, won the case, Peter hadn’t died from Fugu, and Ellen wanted to try get back together with Jared. But then the Chive called and their whole world was spinning, ready to fall on black or red, ready to rip them apart or force Peter to say no to an opportunity that Jared hadn’t even known Peter wanted. They had everything going for them. doing what they loved in a good, well paying job. They had a future. The kind of future Jared thought Peter had wanted. But Peter wanted to leave. Peter wanted out of the big law firm life that he always admired. He wanted to move to Austin. Without Jared. Because Jared had the future that he never knew he wanted… with the big law firm and the settling down and the girlfriend.

"There’s gotta be a better way to do this." Jared tried to keep his tone light. But Peter wasn’t having it. Peter was having fun, high on the opportunity of new prospects. This was happening. This was going to decide everything.

This was going too fast. In a few short seconds everything would be over. There wasn’t a way that Peter wasn’t going. Jared couldn’t, wouldn’t, keep him some place he didn’t want to be. Keep him from an adventure he wanted to go on.

What do you say when your life’s being gambled away. There wasn’t enough time. No time to say what Jared wanted. To say ‘I wish this wasn’t happening’, ‘time out, let’s talk about this’, ‘this can’t be the way this ends’, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I want to stay and you want to go’. ‘Please don’t go.’

No time. The ball’s spinning too fast.

"I love you."

Peter pulls his eyes off the table. Jared’s not looking at him. But his voice… his voice is full of all the things they don’t say to each other. Peter nods.

"I love you, too."


	6. (And One Time They Didn’t)

The beach house is empty. Well, not completely. All of Jared’s stuff is still there. But Peter’s room? That’s completely cleared out. Most of it moved to a storage facility. Jared had told Peter that he could leave his stuff. To save money and because it was no big deal and Jared would make sure the door was locked when he threw parties. Not because it would feel more like Peter was still around. That Peter was coming back. That Peter had maybe only stepped out to grab some more beer. Not because of that.

But Peter had scoffed at him. “You don’t want my stuff lying around, dude. What if Ellen wants a sewing room or something?”

Ellen wouldn’t want a sewing room. Jared’s pretty sure Ellen doesn’t sew. Even if she did, and even if she wanted a sewing room, or any other kind of room, it wouldn’t be in Peter’s room. Because that room was Peter’s. And it wasn’t like he was leaving forever.

So his room is staying empty and locked. Waiting.

Peter’s packed up his last bag, made a final sweep of the house, shoved the last bits of his life into an already stuffed car. Jared’s helped him do it all. Handed him his clothes (the ones that he’ll need right away, without having to dig through boxes or do any serious unpacking), found the box of guitar picks that Peter had forgotten were in Jared’s room, suggested putting the duffle bags on the floor behind the front seats to maximize room for boxes in the back. Like a good, supportive friend who’s happy for their buddy to start a new chapter of their life.

Peter shoves all of his weight against the back door until it clicks shut. He turns to Jared. “I think that’s all of it.”

Jared nods, hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “Yeah. Think so.”

"So I should probably…" Peter leans his head towards the road.

Jared snaps his gum. “Beat some traffic.”

Neither of them knows what to do, how this goodbye should play out. It’s even worse than when Peter went away to jazz camp when they were kids. At least then they knew when they’d see each other again. Now, who knows. The holidays. Maybe. If Peter wasn’t busy. If Ellen didn’t want to take Jared to her parent’s house.

They had promised to skype though. Jared had suggested it, casually, over beers during Peter’s going away party. And Peter had them practice from opposite sides of the house once and talked about how cool it was going to be. How it was going to be like he wasn’t even gone.

They were going to stay in each other’s lives while not being there at all. And everything was going to be just the same while being completely different.

So there was no need for a big, showy goodbye. No need for final declarations that would, against all odds, stay the inevitable and put right what once went wrong.

Peter slides into the front seat and starts the engine. He turns to look at Jared. “I’ll call when I get there.”

Jared tries to smile but he’s not sure if it works. “Make sure you do.”


End file.
